1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a computer-readable medium or a computer program product including a computer program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern offices have many image forming apparatuses, such as printers. These image forming apparatuses are connected to a network in a way that makes them accessible from various locations, including locations outside the office. In order to select a desired printer from the available printers intuitionally, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-249941 discloses a technology for displaying a map image with icons representing the printers arranged at their respective positions.
In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) virtual spaces on a network have become popular, such as Second Life (registered trademark). In a 3D virtual space, various objects, such as houses, land, devices, and avatars that are metaphors of users, are managed in the same manner as in the real world. Because the amount of data managed in 3D virtual spaces is large, in a typical 3D virtual space, data is managed by a plurality of virtual-space management servers.
Users can operate the devices, etc. that are present in the virtual space using their avatars. Thus, users can act in the 3D virtual space in the same manner as they would act in the real world. Therefore, for example, it is possible to create a space in the virtual space as a metaphor of a real office (closed space) and have users carry out tasks in the virtual space. If this idea is realized, the representation of reality in the virtual world and the operability will be improved. In such a virtual office, it is possible to input data that is used in the real world to the virtual space and to execute a job using the input data in the virtual space. In this case, an easy method is preferable for inputting data that is used in the real world to the virtual space.
The technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-249941 can provide, for example, a method of inputting data used in the real world to the virtual space. More particularly, the technology provides a method of selecting an icon that represents a desired virtual-space management server, which processes data to be input from map information containing a plurality of icons each representing a virtual-space management service.
However, the method needs to select another folder that corresponds to a device for processing data to be input, from the folders in a memory managed by the virtual-space management server that corresponds to a selected icon. That is, the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-249941 cannot provide an easy method of inputting data used in the real world to the virtual space.